5 ms·

Just as the majority of new languages tout features that were available in Lisp 50 years ago, all of this new forum software recreates Usenet, poorly. A compel

Just as the majority of new languages tout features that were available in Lisp 50 years ago, all of this new forum software recreates Usenet, poorly. A compelling offering would build on netnews, not ignore it. In particular: - Threading. Real threading, with subtopics, not the impossible to follow simplistic nested comments currently offered. - State. Remember which comments have been read and only show new content. - Killfiles. Let the user decide which topics and other participants to read rather than requiring the forum owner to act as a censor. - Multiple clients. Allow the forum to be accessed by each user's preferred forum client. Perhaps there is a commercial opportunity for a company to provide the nntp protocol and manage storage for fora that want rich discussion capabilities.

eksith 13y ago
The alternative is going back to Usenet, which considering the current state of affairs, is impossible. Real threading is possible to an extent with nested comments (hidden until expanded). There are some software that already offer this. State is also available in some versions. Discourse does this to an extent and I think Vanilla has a plugin for it. Killfiles alternative would be an ignore list for users and subscribe feature for specific tags which some forums already offer. I'm not sure if NNTP is up to the task, but a similar massively distributed system with persistent storage would likely be a solution. There's also the aspect of familiarity. There are better ways to handle discussion, but these would be jarring for someone accustomed to the "worse" way of doing things for the past decade or so. I also think forums would greatly benefit from having fewer features that are absolutely necessary.
- patrickmay 13y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence. Thinking on it a little further, I don't see why nntp can't be reused. The site would need a web-based Usenet client, hopefully superior to the one offered by Google, storage for the private newsgroup, and an open port 119 on the server. It's all in the packaging. Damn, I was really hoping to get some real work done this weekend....

eksith 13y ago

The alternative is going back to Usenet, which considering the current state of affairs, is impossible. Real threading is possible to an extent with nested comments (hidden until expanded). There are some software that already offer this. State is also available in some versions. Discourse does this to an extent and I think Vanilla has a plugin for it. Killfiles alternative would be an ignore list for users and subscribe feature for specific tags which some forums already offer. I'm not sure if NNTP is up to the task, but a similar massively distributed system with persistent storage would likely be a solution. There's also the aspect of familiarity. There are better ways to handle discussion, but these would be jarring for someone accustomed to the "worse" way of doing things for the past decade or so. I also think forums would greatly benefit from having fewer features that are absolutely necessary.

patrickmay 13y ago
I agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence. Thinking on it a little further, I don't see why nntp can't be reused. The site would need a web-based Usenet client, hopefully superior to the one offered by Google, storage for the private newsgroup, and an open port 119 on the server. It's all in the packaging. Damn, I was really hoping to get some real work done this weekend....